The car rental service Hertz Corp. will add five Ford Transit Connect Electric small vans to its fleet, according to Oak Park-based Azure Dynamics Corp., the company that builds the electric powertrains for the Ford vehciles.

Chevrolet Wednesday announced it will produce an all-electric version of the Chevrolet Spark mini-car, the Spark EV. It will be sold in limited quantities in select U.S. and global markets starting in 2013, including California.

Recognizing the importance of a single international approach for DC fast charging, Audi, BMW, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Porsche and Volkswagen have agreed on the combined charging system as an international standardized approach to charge electric vehicles in Europe and the United States.

Kettering University still has plenty of automotive heritage, and boy, does it have a lot of other cool research going, as I learned Friday morning on the final tour stop of the Great Lakes IT Report Fall Tech Tour for 2011.

Around 100 people attended Thursday’s “Are You Plugged In? Preparing Your Community For Electric Vehicles” event, sponsored by the city of Auburn Hills, the green initiative OakGreen and the Ann Arbor-based Clean Enegy Coalition.